Duality
by Fate Vione
Summary: An A/U spin off on what could have happened after Ephemeral Reflections and Forsaken Shadows if Danielle had returned. (Please read those first or this will make no sense..)
1. Chapter 1

Dick rolled the small bit of metal between his fingers, staring at the screen that lit up the otherwise dark room. He'd been locked away for hours already. Not literally. The door was far from locked but his friends gave him space. They knew by now when he was in one of his 'moods'. They were certain he'd been infected by Bruce at a young age. He could certainly brood like the bat, just not as often. When he did...

His eyes darted down to the slug that had been dug out of his flesh, the searing pain an all to close memory. Worse was the pain in his heart, the heaviness. For the first time, in such a very long time, he felt helpless, lost.. He finally felt himself loosing hope. His eyes closed. The world was closing in on him for the first time since he'd watched his parents fall, their desperate eyes burned into his memory, the sickening thud of bodies hitting the ground. A flit of gray, a gun, a shot.

His eyes snapped open, his heart racing, the slug digging painfully into his palm from where he held it so tightly. He let out a half sight, half sob, his chest tightening painfully. How? How did it come to this? Brother against brother? Brother against sister? How did life take so drastic turns? Why was it so cruel?

He nearly choked on the air as the sirens startled him, the red lights shining with warning, the glare of alarms ringing through the cave like a banshee shriek. The slug was tossed protectively into the pouch at his waist where it'd rested since being removed from his body, a constant reminder, before he ran from the room to the main control room of Mnt. Justice.

"What's happening" Nightwing called as he ran through the hall into the main room of the cave. The red lights of the alarms flashed and the sirens blared their warning as the few members of the team present at the time scattered across the floor and scanned the screens that flared to life with signatures and readings of odd energy outputs, the electronic voice sounding 'warning' and 'incoming' before dying out in an electronic buzz.

"I don't know!" Called Conner from one screen. "The readings are off the charts!"

Nightwing approached the screen, staring at the fluxing waves of energy that were disrupting the very air around them, the hair on the back of his neck standing up. He stared for long moments to the output before backing from the screen in shock. "I haven't seen this since.."

Off to his right and further above his head, the very air itself split, opening in a black and gaping hole that tried to blow them back with unnatural gusts of air that stank of sulfur, stale and stagnant. His hands and arms flew to guard his face against the unknown elements released by this new anomaly. Through the narrow space between his forearm he could see the gray mass tumbled forward from the hole, head over heels til it crashed on the floor, bouncing and skidding like a rag doll before landing in a disheveled heap. The hole snapped back shut with a great suction that pulled everyone in the room forward.

A groan came from the mass of fabric and limbs on the floor and a shift, an opening and Nightwing was flying across the floor to lift the young girl up into his arms, turning her over gently the feathered domino that met his gaze was anything but unfamiliar, the gray bird spread across her much more developed bosom anything but surprising.

Sparrows eyes darted frantic across the room, her body ached and the cuts across her skin burned and stung. She grew panicked until her gaze fell on a dark domino, strong jaw and a familiar blue bird on his chest. "Wing..?" She gasped out, finally calming enough to catch her breath. But his suit was different. The.. they were in mnt Justice? It was.. wrong. With pleading eyes the young woman looked into Nigtwings masked eyes. "I'm not in Kansas anymore.. am I Toto?"

"'fraid not, Dorothy." Dick answered with a slight smile.

"Didn't think so..." She groaned, closing her eyes as if the light of the cave alone was causing her pain. She pushed herself up to a sitting position, hand cupping one side of her head as if to stop it from spinning. "Way to go Sparrow.. not a year on the job and already screwing with interdenominational worlds again.." She muttered to herself.

"Danielle..?" Megan whispered tentively. "Is it really you?" She feet glided across the floor towards the figure.

"Hey Megs-" Was all Dani got out before she was near tackled in a hug. A bone crushing hug. She gasped, desperately patting M'ganns back. "Megs.. Megs... air!" She rasped out. The green Martian pulled back, allowing Sparrow to finally overlook the older girl. Her hair was shorter, her face a bit more mature, higher cheek bones and.. wet eyes. "Megs..?"

The green girl sniffled. "I've missed you..." She choked out.

Danielle searched desperately for answers in her eyes. At a loss she looked up to see the same worried, longing and forlorn face etched across Conner's face and finally she turned to Dick. Her chest constricted at the guilty, pitying look that he wore. "What's happened?" She demanded softly.

"It's a long story..." His voice cracked against his will and his grip tightened on her shoulder where he'd been helping her to sit up more steadily.

"Dick-" She began before feeling him envelope her in his arms, gentler than Megan but not less demanding, still clinging like she'd disappear if he let go. Her eyes were wide in surprise at the sudden embrace. Dick had always been more.. clingy.. physical.. but not quite so out in the open..

"I've missed you, baby sister." He whispered out. "I've missed you..."

And yet, somehow, it didn't feel like he was talking to her...

AN- And I started another one.. but I AM on vacation.. Hopefully I can get some chapters done.


	2. Chapter 2

AN- so good part about this story, it allows me to touch on bloodwings past in more detail than in forsaken (which I avoided only cuz it would seem to make it drag.) The whole chapter takes place in a 'debriefing room' for lack of better term. The team (those who are informed currently) left the family to tend to itself for now... Oh and **GODDESS**, this is a side story, not cannon to FS

CHAPTER 2

"My mother..?" Danielle questioned. Eyes down cast and darting about as the information processed. "No." She said firmly. "No it was my father.. after the business went down he.." she looked up across the table Dick had led her to after they'd all gathered themselves enough to pick themselves up off the floor. He looked drawn, worn with worry yet still trying to comfort her. "My father...?" Her voice was near pleading, willing it to make sense, willing her heart to stop aching.

"Harold Fischer was killed in a botched bank robbery.." Dick said softly. "We... showed up too late.." He said with apology clear in his tone. Danielle let out a huff of air, trying to dispel the tightness in her chest. "We tried to keep close but Cathleen.. She didn't handle his death well. Then she met..." He paused, throat dry and unable to continue.

"Derringer.." Danielle croaked out, unable to meet his gaze.

"He was using an alias, hid himself well.. We didn't know.. but damn it we should have!" Dick slammed his fist into the table, biting back his own self hatred. There was a pause while he collected himself and Danielle, for the first time since arriving, pulled the blanket draped over her shoulders a little more tightly against her. "When.." He choked on his words. He was trained better than to let emotion overtake him like this but.. it was too much, it was too close. If Bruce were to see him like this.. "When we saw you.. limping to school and..the bruises.. Bruce fought for custody.. you were 7."

"So.. There was no escaping it.." Danielle whispered. "I was born to be Sparrow.."

"We tried to keep you off the streets." He offered. "We tried to keep it hidden, tried to keep her innocent.. For all the good that's done..." Danielle turned to him with a clear questioning look, her unmasked green orbs narrowed, eyebrows brought together. "Jason-" He began.

"You found him?" Danielle interrupted quickly, hopefully.

"And lost him.. just as you said.." He watched her take a deep breath, saddened but not surprised nor devastated by the news. "But.. He didn't"

"Hood." She stated so easily, so firmly it caused Dick to look up in question. "It's happened in my world too." She said without looking, without emotion. It would appear that her training had taken a much stronger foothold. Her face, spitting image of Bruce. "For all our differences, it would seem we can not escape our fate."

"For your sake and ours I pray that isn't true." Dick paused, giving a very pointed look at her, examining her. To this she raised an eyebrow a fraction of an inch. "Our Dani.. She's joined the Red Hood."

"What?" Dicks statement had certainly gotten a rise out of her. Her eyes were large, mouth slacked and limbs hanging lifelessly in shock.

"Maybe I should start from the beginning..." Dick said softly. "We kept you out of the life but.. Jason wasn't so easy and.. After his death.." The desperate look on her face increased with each word, needing answers, needing to understand. "We raised you together.. we never should have let you out on the field. You were too angry, it was revenge for his death.." Dick shook his head

"Dick, what happened!" She demanded desperately.

"Years later... We found Derringer he was operating out of Gotham, attempting to create that drug.. We were better prepared. We found him quickly, before much had happened but.."

"Dick, what did Derringer do!"

"Nothing... She killed him.." Danielle shrank back. "Fenella and Kerra were used as guinea pigs. After seeing that, she killed him. She killed him and ran away.. made us think.. We thought she'd thrown herself from the bridge... and we searched..." Dick stood, unable to stay still any longer. He paced a bit, back and forth, back and forth. His hand came to rest on the back of his hair where he tried to wring the nonexistent life from it. "Jason had her. The entire time. He's convinced her that everything was planned. She thinks.. she thinks we used her... some pawn... Now they're back in Gotham."

"And causing chaos no doubt.." She said coldly, face stony/

"You take this news lightly/" Dick said with a tone of annoyance, of anger at her so easily dismissing their pain and the grief of it all.

"How would you have me react to knowing that there is a murderous me out there? That at any given moment I may cross the line that defines all that I've been? That urge, that evil is inside me and there is no off switch, there is no way to get rid of it! How would you have me react after all that's happened to me?" Danielle responded with anger.

"I'm sorry." Dick said softly. All those old feeling rushing back. The first time he was told he wasn't Robin, that he left the life behind in a fit of rage. The lies, betrayal. Feeling like everything was planned out without your own input. He'd managed to forget those feelings, pushed them to the back of his mind. He hadn't thought it'd have been so hard for the once more stony faced girl to do the same.

"A lot has changed since I went back Dick. Everything and nothing at once." Danielle seemed enthralled with her own hand, studying her gloved fingers, flexing them in the protective material. Her second hand came up to trace along the gray symbol of the bird on her breast. "I never should have returned..." She said soft and low.

Dick made to open his mouth only to be interrupted by the opening of a door. Both pair of eyes in the room looked up to see The Bat in full garb at the doorway, his eyes narrowed in questioning first and Danielle herself and then at Dick. Dick ignored Bruces request for answers to look back at Danielle. She seemed in much more distress than Bruce at the moment. She'd fallen silent, her eyes fixed on Batman, pale faced and lips parted ever so slightly to let out small huffs of air from deep down. They were stifled, choked somewhat. "I called him in. I thought we might need to figure this all out again." He said in explanation for his actions. But it would seem she didn't hear him. She was still staring directly at Bruce, a slight shiver in her shoulders. "Dani...?" He questioned, moving forward with his hand extended as if approaching a wounded animal. "Are you-"

Without warning Danielle lunged forward, pushing right past Nightwing and throwing herself at Bruce who had instinctively taken to the defense, stiffening and placing his hands on her shoulder to push her off, until the first wretched sob tore from deep inside her, her fingers clawing at the kevlar of his back and bunching his cape. Dick and Bruce locked eyes, both completely bewildered.

"I'm sorry!" Danielle sobbed into his chest plate. "I'm so sorry.. Forgive me" She sobbed brokenly, over and over again, a mantra that made sense only to her own mind.


	3. Chapter 3

**Dual 3**

"What's happened?" Came the gravely Batman voice, vibrating through Danielles body from where she still had her face pressed to his chest. "Danielle, how did you come back here." He demanded, pushing gently but insistingly at her shoulders to separate themselves. After a moment Danielle allowed herself to be pushed back with a hollow chuckle. She wiped the corner of her eyes carefully with the side of her gloved thumb, consciously avoiding the sharp tips of her fingers that Bruce could now see, rather than feel, had been been brought to a point, not ultra long but sharp.

"Down to business as always, Bruce." Came her huffed chuckled as she breathed deep, calming the slight tremor through her body. "A mistake. A stupid rookie mistake brings me here." She said darkly as she stepped back to the chair to take a seat. She sank unceremoniously, obviously drained. "Seems my Lex had his R & D department cook up a batch of new toys. The resulting fight when we were discovered found me on the receiving end of one of his untested beams.." She sighed. There was a nagging part of her brain that wanted to blame Damian. It was his eagerness to get in a fight on the reconnaissance mission that had landed them in hot water to start. It was him she jumped in the way of the beam for. Still, the 'bat' instilled in her yelled, if she weren't so out of practice, if she'd been more on guard, just a bit faster. She never should have gotten caught in that beam to get Damian out of the way. "I doubt he even knows what it does the way he's using it. Hell, we didn't know..."

"Lex has a way to transport to and from dimensions and you didn't tell us this first?" Dick asked in disbelief, his jaw dropping. Bruce stood silently at his side, evaluating the situation.

"The fact that you don't see more caped crusaders dropping from the ceiling is probably a good indication that the good guys won." Her head dropped to the side, one eyebrow raised in sarcasm. "Even if he is aware of what the ray does by now, he probably won't have it in his procession. "

"You seem confident in that." Bruce said gruffly, giving nothing away though he studied her every move.

"I was fighting along side.. Batman.." Her pause was quickly overcome but not missed by the detective. "He wouldn't let Lex get far with something like that."

"What are you hiding?"

"Nothing," She answered far too quickly.

"Dani!" Dick growled in an all too familiar 'Batman' voice. It sent a shiver down his spine. "What's really going on here." He demanded of the smaller woman, his palms slapping the table as he leaned forward.

"I was out of practice. I screwed up the mission.. Not something I feel like discussing. Thought you'd understand that." She shot back but her lack of eye contact gave her away more than any confession could.

"That certainly explains the waterworks earlier." Dick threw his hands out towards Bruce. He was being mean, they all knew it. It didn't come as naturally to him as say, Bruce, but she was hiding something, they both knew it, she knew they knew. Last time she' decied to keep secrets it had almost broken up the team on multiple accounts and gotten most of them into near death situations. Given their own most recent consequence with lies, we'd rather not have more, at least not from within.

"I haven't seen him in a long while. In case you haven't noticed, I'm far from 13!" She snapped angrily. And indeed it was quite clear. Her hips had widened, her breast increased. Her legs had lengthened and her thighs and backside had rounded. Her face had lost that baby fat that he remembered and her voice was deeper than he remembered, lacking that higher pitch of lingering childhood that had clung to the preteen during her first visit.

"Well now you're just trying to hurt my feelings" He said, playing the mocked hurt card but with a much darker tone. "cause you certainly didn't act that way with me." The room fell silent, unnaturally so, even for the bat family. Danielle adverted her eyes, swallowing hard. "You know.. I thought you were one of those few that could actually tell the truth." He said angrily, clearly meaning more than he'd actually said, locking in an intense gaze with Batman. He rounded the table, angrily and quickly making for the door. He had his hand on the knob before her voice broke the silence like a a brick through glass, soft as it was.

"It wasn't a lie." She croaked. When he turned to face her she was stiff, facing forward in the opposite direction, clearly not wanting to be seen. He let her have that, he instead settled for watching her back as she spoke. "Up until a few months ago it had been years since I put on the suit. I;m rusty and it caused me to get caught. I was sloppy."

The way she spoke, so much more sincere than the first made him believe her, made him pause. He took a breath, allowing her words to settle in the bottom of his stomach like a bowling ball. It wouldn't be the first time he's seen a hero retire. Wally and Artemis had made it clear they wanted a normal life but.. Well he'd never imagined that Danielle could ever be satisfied with a 'normal' life. He never thought she' give it up. "You.. Gave up the life." He wasn't sure if it was a question, a statement or an accusation but she nodded all the same. His shoulders slumped at her choice of silence. "Why?" He questioned, already fearing he knew the reasoning, fearing what she had feared all those years ago. She shook her head.

"I came back because Gotham needed help." She paused, her back stiffer than before, each muscle tensed enough to break bones. "Mobs roamed the the streets and murders were carried out in broad day light as though it was nothing. I came back because Gotham had gone to hell." She turned, face trained to stone but crumbling just around her eyes. "I came because the mantle had been passed down..."

AN For her way of getting back to the YJ universe,, I just came up with some crazy BS. I don't know many villain outside classic Batman and Lex seemed the most likely to have something along those lines and.. IDK, Suoes called them in? Asked for help.. IDK.. It's there for convenience.


	4. Chapter 4

The rooms temperature dropped, the air was heavy with the silence in those moments. His eyes locked with hers and all else faded away. Every crease, every wrinkle that crossed his face as realization of her confessed words sunk in. The furrow of his brows as it was repressed, denied. In silence he turned, throwing open the door and storming through it and past all the questioning eyes of his friends who nosily kept close quarters to the room. The door slammed against the wall, bouncing back and swinging gently before its weight finally closed it with the soft click.

There was the swish of the cape to her side as Bruce made a movement to follow. "Don't." She stated firmly. Bruce turned to her with narrowed eyes, not liking the idea of her giving HIM orders. "He didn't take the news much better in my own world. To him.. to all of us.. You've always been as invulnerable, as indestructible as Clark ever could be. None of us could have ever imagined you not being there.."

"So it's true."

For the slightest of seconds she thought she heard some raw emotion in his voice and it nearly made her chuckle that he would fear this. He was human after all. She nodded all the same. "I.. wasn't there. I didn't even know for months. Wouldn't have known if not for the news reports."

"Who-" He began.

"Don't." She cut off immediately, finally looking up from where she'd been staring a hole into the floor since Dick left. "Even if I told you.. If I told you it happened.. to save the world.. to prevent a disaster.. would you not go willingly for your purpose?" Bruce didn't answer, only straightened hi back, mouth pressed in a thin line. "Then why should I torment you with knowing it when we know, this time, there will be no changing the future..?" There was a moment of understanding silence between them before being broken.

"What happened to you." Bruce demanded. Her eyes rose slowly to meet his and locked , questioning his motive, his direction and a sad laugh escaped her.

"It's that obvious, huh?" She laughed, ending with a long sigh, leaning backwards of her chair, eyes staring to the ceiling for a moment. "We're broken Bruce. We're broken people trying to piece together a broken family that doesn't know what family means.." She said smoothly. "Tim hadn't talked to me in years. I would hardly know any of you were alive if not for Alfreds calls. I didn't even know you died! They didn't tell me!" She laughed but it seemed a bit.. manic.. " Tim ran off and Dick just isn't the same. And I.. I started it all. I broke what little we had..." It was like she was admitting it to herself for the first time. With the words came a more strained look, slumping of her shoulders as if the world was pushing, crushing her down.

"Danielle..."

"I was loosing it Bruce." She stated darkly. "I was violent, harder hits. Riskier hits. I was loosing my temper more and more often. I couldn't stay." She tactfully blanked her face, focusing on the small crack in the ceiling, even though she could feel his heavy gaze on her. "I graduated early. I went out of state to college. I left the life behind in the cave. I left Tim.. I left you.. and I never looked back until it was too late." She slumped forward, breathing deep. She turned to face him from this slouched position, eyes narrowing in determination as she stood, stepping up to him.

"It not right.. but it's the closest thing I can get and it might just be the only chance I get.." She said softly. "Whatever I've done.. whatever I've said, I never meant to hurt you. I can never thank you for all you've given. For saving my life, for giving me a home,a reason to live. The time, the worry and sleepless nights over my bedside. There's nothing in the world that can repay what I never appreciated, what I took advantage of.." Her eyes were glossy, the tears teetering the the outer edges. "I'm sorry.. I love you, Bruce.."

This time her movements weren't so rushed, so panicked. Her eyes closed, causing the crystal tears to fall delicately down her cheeks as she stepped into him. And he met her halfway, an arm wrapping securely around her back. He understood the words weren't for him but he took them any. Cause they were exactly what he needed to here.


End file.
